Jack Walker Music – Update

Hello friends and fellow composers. Just a quick update on where the projects and albums are.

I spent 2010 in convalescence while completing a number of television projects for A&E and National Geographic.

As such, the albums I was working on took a major hit. TM 2 has been put off for a year, and two other projects began to percolate in the last month and a half. I’ll address those in a later post.

I am rebuilding my sounds database (had a hard drive crash about 6 months ago) and the studio wasn’t operating at 100% for a while.

As for TM 2, its getting close, but I’m still not quite happy with some of the arrangements. I’m considering bringing on a friend who does kick ass arrangements (you know who you are). Hopefully it will reignite the fires of creation as it were.

I’ll keep you updated, and get a release date for TM 2 soon.

Thanks for reading,

Jack

Twilight Meditations 2 - Pre-Production Update

Wooohoo!

Sounds have been selected. Gigastudio 4 has finally died a horrible death, so I'll be using two other PC's loaded with Kontakt, Waves and Omnisphere to fill in. Going to have to figure something out for Giga Violin though. NOTHING can touch that sample and it's only workable in Giga4.

Any suggestions?

96 Khz is the sample rate, the DVD session is plotted, and once I have roughs of all the music I'll pass them to the better half of me to see if they inspire anything.

I become excited :)

Soon

Jack

Twilight Meditations 2 - Pre-Production

Heya gang. Yup, I'm in the middle of putting together instruments and ideas for a second release, tentatively named Twilight Meditations 2. I know, very creative naming. Heh

Anyway, I intend to do this release a bit differently. Specifically, I'm going to record it so that it can be mixed and released in 5.1 surround. I also have a very sexy and talented photographer and graphic designer that I think I can bribe into doing visuals so this can turn into a multimedia relaxation release.

Plans are to make its flow somewhat similar to the last release, starting at around 70 BPM and slowing to 58 BPM, but sticking there. So instead of a gentle slope down then slope up, this will be a very gentle slope down. Hopefully listeners will be able to fall asleep. I know a couple of people who suffer from insomnia and I'm eager to see if this is successful in helping with that.

I'm going to try a bit more with the piano this time. There was a lot of piano in some of the pieces from the last CD, but after listening to George Winston's new age stuff, I realized that you can really carry the material with very limited instrument choices.

I plan on using some more world instrumentation as well, some of the textures that are produced when you combine instruments from two totally different regions of the planet are unique and strangely familiar. There will be some experimentation. If you have any ideas of what might be neat to try, please by all means post some suggestions.

I have a prelemenary release date of quarter 1 2010.

My best

Jack

Twilight Meditations Sessions - CD Complete

The Night is Over, The Day Begins

Its fitting that the final track, which I guess technically falls outside the meditation part of the CD, is called The Day Begins.

I've never liked mornings.  If you really know what I'm like, then you'll know how much of a night owl I am.  I work better, play better, read more, etc. while the moon is in the sky.  There is a feeling that I can't describe knowing that I'm one of the few up in my part of the world.  Elsewhere, on other continents, people carry out their days, much like we do, while we sleep.  When twilight comes for us, they begin their day.

When the alarm clock beeps to wake me up, at 8am, I used to despise it.  I hated alarm clocks.  I am a grouchy morning person most days.  But then someone dear to me explained something that I will never forget.

The day comes, and with it comes the thankfulness that i've made it through another night, and can awaken, my life continuing for another day.  Its exciting, empowering and extremely profound.

So even if I still flip off the alarm clock and growl at it, I remember the important fact that hadn't occurred to me until it was explained to me in my mid thirties.

We've awoken, we're alive, and its a brand new day.  What will happen to us today is unlike anything we've ever been though before.  Isn't that worth a smile for the morning?

see you soon

jack

Twilight Meditations Sessions - Final Mix Day Two

Well, the mixes are literally being torn through.  Besides some aesthetic  instrumentation changes, volume redraws and some minor reverb tweaking, I think the disc is really gonna work.

At least I hope so  O_O

There is a major thunderstorm going on outside, and I usually unplug the whole studio and run for the living room, but I'm on a roll, and it feels like I can't stop now.  All thats left to mix is twilight dawning and then its a move to the recapitulation tracks.  I think two will do it.  I'm going to estimate the disc will time out to right around an hour or so.

Thanks so much for staying with me you few, it really means a lot when I get comments on this stuff, otherwise i'd feel so alone.

See you late tonite,

jack

Twilight Meditations Sessions - Night 7

The meditation section of the CD is complete.  The last track, Dawn Breaks...er..Daybreak.  Hmmm.   Which sounds better to you?  Anyway, it renews us with the promise of the new day, and all of the wonderful things that come with it.

The empowerment I have felt these last seven days has been truly remarkable.  It has, technical issues notwithstanding, been an effortless process.  Gone are pretty much all of the ideas in the sunrise cd folder, which was my rough ideas session to draw from, but this is the way the disc needed to come out.  I didn't fight it (much).  Heheh.

I plan to write 2 more pieces tomorrow, to sort of Sum up all of the themes that have been explored in these pieces.  I stayed away from repeating themes in each of the songs, because I really wanted time to explore as many "hooks" as possible.  Some of the pieces start very upbeat, and slowly wind to a pastoral end.  Some stay at an even keel.

I listen to these seven tracks and realize that there is nothing left to say musically.  Oh I could go on and on here, but my yammering is just verbal comments on something that must be heard.  Its kind of like the Matrix, only the real Matrix is better than anything I could ever come up with.

I hope to, in the future, work with a certain editor I know, to set some of these pieces to video.  Deep Blue and Star Trails especially could make good fodder for this creative editor who has mastered animation, stop motion, live action, etc...

Tomorrow I mix four more pieces and the CD will be complete.  Critical listening will take place Wednesday, and with any luck, it will be FTP'd to Discmakers shortly there after for replication.

I've seen some of the preliminary artwork that Jenn has done, and it is both incredible and inspiring.  Deep Blue was written because of one of her ideas she showed me.  She has some alternate covers as well, I asked for the other ones to be possible other albums.  But we shall see.

I think I may have said everything I need to with this one project.

See you tomorrow

jack

Twilight Meditations Sessions - Final Mixes Started

Wooo!  Mixing track one "Twilight Falls".  It was a lot less work than I thought it was going to be.  Just 3 clicks that needed removing, some eq, compression on the strings (damn Cello players) and some note replacement.

I once told a friend that mixing this stuff was pretty straightforward because all of the instrumentation was recorded really well.  Thats just the volume though.  Reverb time (trails) are really important in this type of music.  Generally, I find the busiest section of music and make sure that the trail of the previous note doesn't interfere with the next note on.  It prevents soup...which is sometimes desirable.  But right now I'm in the mood for a steak and eggs.  We'll get into that sometime, if we talk in person.  Steak and eggs music instead of soup.  Dear Lord where has he gone now?

I'll mix three today, three tomorrow and finish 3 tonite and tomorrow.  infinitequest.com goes live friday, which means that my 16th release date needs to be adheared to (eep!)

We shall see.

:)

jack